


A Question of Regret

by LuxKen27



Series: Count Me In [3]
Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Holding Hands, Introspection, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6087505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuxKen27/pseuds/LuxKen27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes simple questions don't have simple answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question of Regret

**Author's Note:**

> _Author’s Note_ : Part of the [Count Me In](http://archiveofourown.org/series/384103) series. Further author’s notes can be found [here](https://luxken27.dreamwidth.org/769647.html).

~*~

“Do you ever regret it?”

Charlie’s question sliced through the stillness of the air, breaking up the companionable silence that lingered between them. He and Janine were lounging on the spacious quad in front of Stoneybrook University after a lunch date, a wholly pleasant occurrence that was becoming the norm, much to his satisfaction. They lay side by side in the warm afternoon sun, gazing up into the pristine blue sky.

“What?”

Charlie cocked his head, sliding a curious look towards his companion. “Not learning how to drive,” he clarified, folding his hands behind his head.

Janine’s expression turned thoughtful as her eyes continued to follow the lazy drift of the puffy white clouds overhead. “Only when I’m certain that I will be inevitably delayed,” she replied, the corners of her mouth turned up in a slight smile.

He found her answer amusing, but also surprising, although he wasn’t completely sure why. “Really?” he drawled. “I mean – it’s practically a suburban rite of passage: you turn sixteen, you take driver’s ed, you spend a year making ever-widening circles in empty lots behind abandoned shopping malls…”

She laughed.

“And then,” he continued, buoyed by her response,” at seventeen, you take the road test and pass, and get that license, your ticket to freedom – ”

“As I recall, you spent most of your seventeenth year chauffeuring our sisters around with the rest of the Baby-sitters Club,” she teased.

He sighed, rolling his head back and forth across his palms. “That’s how desperate Mom and Watson were for help,” he informed her ruefully. “Getting my license meant I was Officially in Charge of transporting Sam and Kristy wherever they needed to go; Nannie had the same responsibility for the younger kids. Not that I minded, really,” he hastened to add, “because I would’ve done _anything_ to get behind the wheel. Getting my own car was like having all my Christmases, all at once.”

She laughed again, but it sounded hollow this time. “Maybe that’s why I never bothered to take the driving test,” she mused softly. “I enjoyed my solitude and lack of familial responsibility.”

Her droll tone betrayed the truth in her words, which wasn’t lost on him. Try as she might, she couldn’t always conceal the deep, abiding streak of loneliness that stemmed straight from childhood. For as long as he could remember, he’d always been the Responsible One, and she’d been the Smart One. Her parents had catered to her genius, perhaps to a fault. He remembered how hard it had been for her when Mimi died, and how alienated she felt from the rest of the family, right when they needed each other the most.

“And anyway,” she continued, breaking into his thoughts, “Stoneybrook possesses a perfectly adequate system of public transportation.”

He shook his head. “But don’t you ever just want to – get _away_ , sometimes? By yourself?” 

“Of course,” she replied, “although I usually just retreat to my bedroom when I feel that way.”

“But surely you want to escape sometimes, even from there,” he contended. “I mean, it’s not for nothing that you’re at MIT now. If you were _that_ homebound, you would’ve ended up at Stoneybrook U instead.”

His line of reasoning brought a smile back to her lips. “I _did_ attend Stoneybrook University – when I was in high school,” she pointed out.

“So _that’s_ why I never saw you around,” he observed with a grin.

“That, and the fact that our paths would’ve rarely crossed, due to our disparate interests. Our social circles were completely different,” she reminded him, rather matter-of-factly.

“Do you ever regret that?” he asked after a long moment.

She slowly tilted her head, her eyes meeting his. “Do you?”

He shrugged. “It’d be nice to see you more often.”

“Because we never bonded in high school?” she scoffed incredulously.

“No,” he replied, extending an arm between them, his hand find and slipping into hers, “because I like you.”

Her smile was shy as she squeezed his fingers. “I like you, too,” she told him.

His gaze lingered on hers before sliding away.

“What?” she asked softly, more of a statement than a question.

He turned away, furrowing his brow as he concentrated on a particularly shapeless cloud. “I regret it,” he finally said, still gripping her hand tightly.

She swallowed hard, her eyes following his heavenward. “What?”

“That we never ‘bonded in high school,’” he replied, echoing her earlier phrase. “Because now we’re not just on opposite sides of Stoneybrook – we’re on opposite coasts of the country.” He frowned at the cynicism in his tone. Apparently he couldn’t always easily conceal his bitterness, either. 

It was rather ironic that they had that in common.

She closed her fingers around his. “My ability to drive – or, indeed, lack thereof – doesn’t change that fact,” she said quietly.

“I know,” he sighed, “it’s just…”

He trailed off, unable to find the words to explain his frustration at the distance that existed between them. Usually, he enjoyed this: the beginnings of a new relationship, the endless hours spent getting to know one another, the _thrill of the chase_ , so to speak – but with her, with their extenuating circumstances, with all of the time they’d unknowingly wasted… He just had no patience for it. He wanted to skip the meandering journey and revel in the precious bond that he could already sense forming between them. Talking to her was nice, but he wanted what was beyond that – the spiritual connection, the unconscious communication, the depth and familiarity that was, as of yet, just beyond his reach.

They’d already lost so much time, and now, they had so little time together before the summer ended…

“I’d feel trapped without an easy means of escape,” he finally said, forcibly shifting his thoughts from the helplessness of their situation. “Maybe it comes from having a huge, boisterous family, but there’s just something about knowing that, no matter what, I can jump in the car and _go_ – I don’t know. I find it very…” He sighed, searching the skies for the right words to frame his thoughts.

“Comforting?” Janine offered.

“Reassuring,” he said instead. “I don’t know if I can explain it, exactly. I guess I just like knowing that I can act on that impulse, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” she responded, surprising him again. He glanced over at her, catching something approaching wistfulness in her expression as she gazed up at the clouds. “I don’t have an impulsive bone in my body.”

 _Do you want one?_ he thought slyly, unable to suppress the accompanying wolfish smile.

Mercifully, she didn’t notice his sudden smirk. “I quite like schedules and routines. I don’t cope well with change,” she confessed.

He gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be in control,” he assured her.

“I just like to know what I’m doing,” she countered, not quite willing to concede his point. She pursed her lips. “If you want the truth, that’s why I don’t drive.”

He furrowed his brow as he regarded her. “You don’t? Or you _can’t_?”

“Don’t,” she clarified with a small shrug. “I understand perfectly well the theoretical concept of the modern combustion engine, as well as the practical physics of navigating a two-ton four-wheeled vehicle. I did take lessons, after all.” She sighed. “If pressed into service, I could probably perform the task adequately.”

“But?” he prompted.

“I’m not very good at it,” she admitted with a frown. “I am not naturally coordinated.”

“Sometimes you just need practice,” he suggested loftily.

“As I’m well aware,” she shot back defensively. “I can ride a bicycle; I have the required spatial awareness for such activities. I just lack athletic ability, including an innate sense of rhythm and coordination.” 

Her stubbornness amused him. She seemed to have made up her mind quite swiftly about her lack of ‘innate rhythm and coordination’ and the ways in which it limited her. The ability to drive was a learned behavior, and just like certain other, rather more pleasurable activities, it required skill and practice to perfect. He was more than happy to challenge a few of those assumptions; however, he sensed that it would be akin to a mountain-moving expedition to attempt to convince her otherwise.

“I suppose it would be useless to try and change your mind?” he asked, lifting their joined hands and lacing their fingers together, before letting them fall back on the ground.

She nodded in agreement. “A fruitless endeavor,” she proclaimed, before casting a curious glance in his direction. “Unless you enjoy exercises in defeat?”

He grinned at her. “Somehow, I can’t see myself winning many arguments with you,” he joked.

He expected her to smile in return, but instead she looked away swiftly, her hand going limp in his. “Does that mean you won’t even try?”

He leaned up on his elbow, trying in vain to meet her eyes again. He wasn’t about to let that cryptic remark slide by without comment, but he couldn’t really get a read on her tone, either. She studiously gazed at a point in the middle distance, beyond the quad; she tried to withdraw her hand from his, but he held firm.

“What do you mean?” he finally asked, concern crowding his voice.

“A lot of people find my intelligence intimidating,” she explained quietly, her voice losing its factual quality, instead inching closer to anguish. “And they generally react in one of two ways: either they try to challenge every single thing I say, or they choose not to engage with me at all.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to him that people might find her intimidating. Aloof, yes. Cold, maybe. Intimidating? Not so much.

She took the opportunity to disengage herself from him as he lapsed into thought. She sat up, drawing her arms around her knees. “Perhaps before we go any further, we should establish where we stand with each other,” she said briskly, the formality of her tone a stark contrast to her displayed vulnerability.

Charlie frowned as he stared at her back. While her candor was refreshing, it was also a bit bewildering. “C’mon, Janine,” he cajoled as he hauled himself upright, leaning forward to look at her directly, “don’t be – daft.” He congratulated himself on his choice of words when he spotted the small smile that curled at the corners of her lips.

A patch of awkward silence stretched between them.

“Well,” he said brightly, bushing his hands through his hair. “We really managed to wander off the subject, didn’t we?”

Her shoulders tugged down into a half-shrug. “I like to wander,” she replied after a moment, releasing her knees as she turned to face him. She offered a conciliatory smile. “It’s a sign of a curious mind.”

“Oh, I’m definitely curious,” he agreed readily. “About a lot of things.”

“Such as?” 

“You,” he replied without hesitation, smiling warmly at her.

“Me?” she responded dubiously. “I’m hardly interesting.”

“Are you serious? You’re the most interesting person I know!” He grinned at her, his words flowing eagerly. “You may like routine, Janine, but you are _not_ boring. Personally, I think you’re fascinating.”

Doubt lingered in her expression. “You’re the first person who’s ever called me fascinating,” she admitted, her features softening with a smile.

“Really?” Not only did this apparent statement of fact surprise him, but it also provoked his insatiable curiosity about certain other corners of her life. “I thought you had a boyfriend. In high school.”

“I did.”

“And he never told you that you were fascinating?”

She shook her head, a pretty pink flush rising along the contours of her neck.

He started to question her further, but abruptly closed his mouth. It was obvious that she wasn’t comfortable talking about her ex. He was deadly curious about the depth and breadth of her past relationships, but he was also acutely aware of a couple of skeletons lurking in his own closet that he didn’t necessarily care to share in public.

Still, he couldn’t quite let his line of questioning go. “In fact, the more we talk, the more questions I have,” he said instead.

It was her turn to be curious. “Like what?” she prompted.

His eyes searched hers for a long moment. “Things I can’t quite ask you just yet,” he replied softly.

Her flush deepened as she averted her eyes, not knowing how to respond to that. Instead, she glanced down at her watch. “Oh, it’s almost time for the afternoon laboratory session,” she cried, scrambling to her feet and brushing away the errant leaves of grass from her clothes.

He reluctantly rose as well, not yet ready for their conversation – or their afternoon – to end.

“Thank you for lunch,” she said, pushing her glasses up the slope of her nose. She reached for her bag, drawing it securely around herself. “I enjoyed it, very much.”

“So did I,” he replied, reaching out for her as he closed the space between them. He traced the fullness of her cheek. “We should do this again sometime.”

She chuckled. “All right,” she agreed, already aware of their standing arrangement. “How about tomorrow? Same time, same place?”

“I’ll be there,” he promised, drawing her close and brushing a kiss against her lips.

She sighed happily, and his heart skipped a beat, a wave of warmth washing over him. 

She turned, but he didn’t let her go just yet, catching her hand before she could walk away. “Janine?”

She looked back at him questioningly.

“If you ever want driving lessons, just let me know,” he said, only half-joking. “I’d be happy to help.”

She considered his offer for a long moment. “I’ll let you know,” she replied, granting him a small smile and a meaningful look as she turned to leave.

He tucked his hands into his pockets as he watched her walk back to her classroom, and made a mental note to ask his stepfather about exclusive use of one of the family cars for the summer.

He suddenly had the feeling he was going to need it.


End file.
